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My Longings
“Strive to be uncynical,
to be a hope-giving force,
to be a steward of substance.”
~ Maria Popova
Bulgarian-born, American-based writerLast evening as we finished dominoes via Zoom, I asked what the most significant news of the day was. My friend said probably that the Trump administration ordered hospitals to bypass the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and send all COVID-19 patient information to a central database in Washington, meaning that the CDC was no longer going to have access to the real-time data about the coronavirus.
I had a heavy sensation low in my gut.
I drew the 5 of Clouds, Comparison, from the Osho deck before I went to bed. I sent the message to my friend. “Just look around. All is needed, and everything fits together. It is an organic unity; nobody is higher and nobody is lower, nobody superior, nobody inferior. Everybody is incomparably unique.” I slept rather fitfully.
When I woke this morning, I knew I was dreaming again, but these images like the past several dreams of children needing support are gone before my feet hit the floor.
My mind is very clear, however, about the “Say Only” story of the importance of reserving judgment as things are unfolding. I first read this story in The Eye of the Storm by Max Lucado. I have since learned that it predates Lucado and Christianity, and is still true….
Perhaps President Trump will be able to report data so that those who have discounted the gravity of the virus and been defiant about protective measures will be able to tolerate (hear) the truth from someone they trust.
I must begin by calling forth my own trust and calling forth his higher guidance.
I looked back over several recent Daily Quotes from Aaron:
July 8, 2020
When enough of you are ready to hold the real vision of a world at peace, where beings do not manipulate, steal, kill or otherwise harm each other, the capacity to hold that vision will emerge in world leaders. You will call them forth. They do not lead you so much as you invite them! The effective leader can only walk where some are ready to follow.July 13, 2020
Bring into your heart and mind the president of this country and others who help to guide him as he makes his decisions. He has a difficult job. You may not agree with his decisions. But certainly you will agree that in his deepest heart, he hopes that his choices for this country will bring peace in the long run if not sooner. This is a man under enormous pressure and he needs your loving wishes even if you say no to his choices. ‘As you strive to guide this nation, may your heart remain open to love and as free as is possible from fear. May you be happy and find peace.’July 14, 2020
You are ready to take this step, ready not only to be awakened but to help the whole Earth awaken, each of you in your own way. I’m not suggesting you’re all going to be like the Buddha, with his path. Your way of awakening the Earth may simply to be to plant an enlightened garden, a garden of plants that you co-create rather than order around. How do we co-create with the Earth? How do we co-create with each other? How do we use our power and unlimitedness in ways that do no harm?July 15, 2020
You as a world are inviting conflict but then not doing the needed practice with it, so you must invite it again and again. You are like the child in school doing endless multiplication table drills; they are unpleasant but you have not studied the tables, and will not, so the teacher repeats the drills. Your inattention calls forth the repetition. If you wish the drills to cease, learn the tables.Aaron’s daily quotes are not selected. The quotes were placed into an archive, and each day one is randomly generated. Some quotes may have never been published, some pop up with regularity, and I have seen some publish two days in a row. Aaron himself established this random generation as a condition when the Daily Quotes began to be shared.
The impact of the coronavirus, and the divisiveness of of sisters and brothers is unpleasant. Wish the drills to cease; learn the tables.
Sue Monk Kidd’s novel, The Book of Longings, is a mesmerizing work of fiction. Ana—a rebellious and gifted young woman of Galilee, meets and marries Jesus. Before their meeting, early in the book, we witness Ana in a clandestine rooftop meeting with her aunt, Yaltha, another unusual woman of the time.
“Do you know what an incantation bowl is?” Yaltha asks Ana. “In Alexandria we women pray with them. We write our most secret prayer inside them. Like this.”
Yaltha places a finger inside the bowl and moves it in a spiraling line around the sides of the bowl. “Every day we sing the prayer. As we do, we turn the bowl in slow circles and the words wriggle to life and spin off toward heaven.”
My most secret prayer has been written into my “incantation bowl” and I will sing this prayer every day: May all beings be happy and find peace; may we awaken wisdom mind; filling the universe with love; joy; kindness; and compassion.
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Overcast
Overcast
It is overcast today
Four months since I
freely hugged
or leaned over the
puzzle table
saying, “Where do you think
this piece goes?”
to my companionIn search of where each piece fits
Longing for the satisfaction
completion bringsThe sun is up there
Still shining
but my world feels grey todayI still embrace those I love
In my hands I cradle
sweet faces
in my heart
even though it is overcast todayI wonder how you got where you are, here by the edge of the concrete, where you bloom.
I also wonder how I got where I am.
It occurs to me that I might be a volunteer like this precious petunia. The conditions are right for our growth. Mine and this purple pretty.
As a writer, I have never been afraid I would have nothing to say. Never has the empty page intimidated me. The space is invitation. The movement of my fingers on the keyboard itself an inspiration. I watch letters appear as if by magic, having left my discursive mind at the door.
This is a time like none other. What I have to say seems to have been said better by others.
I witness this blankness on the page as evidence of the void my heart feels. Not once in his thirty years have I gone this long without being with my him. My first grandchild. My grandson. I remember well his words, “When I am not in my house, and you are not in your house, I am going to miss you.”
He was two.
We have met half-way, in Colombus, Indiana, for the weekend. We are staying in a suite at the Holiday Inn. His grandpa and I sleeping in one room and his mom and he sleeping in the other.
We two are the only ones awake. The small round table and the two chairs where we are seated as he moves the cheerios around in his bowl bear witness to our soft voices as he verbalizes our one heart.
He points to our separate rooms as he speaks. He has a good sense of what is to come. He knows his grandpa and I will go back to Michigan and he will go with his mom back to Tennessee.
He knows we will long for one another.
He knows his mom will wait until he is asleep before she heads south as his grandpa and I head north. Otherwise he would cry and nothing would console him.
I now gather these memories in the tendrils of my current longing — my longing to hold so much and so many.
It is overcast today.
I allow my mind’s eye to blink away the tears until I can see far enough into our future to touch his flesh, smell his breath, and feel the roar of relief.
We must be gentle with ourselves as we navigate the waters of our emotions.
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I Concur
The weather changes very quickly. At 8:45 today, my friend sent a text suggesting we cancel our 9 a.m. bike ride. Rain and thunderstorms were in the forecast. My response: “I concur.”
Concur is one of those words rarely used. It means to agree, be in accord, go along, be in harmony, be in sympathy, see eye to eye, be of the same mind, or be of the same opinion. It also means to happen or occur at the same time; coincide.
On one hand, I can see why the word is rarely used. On the other hand, it should be tattooed on our foreheads. Case in point, my recent letter to the editor:
Confusion and misinformation about COVID-19 has run rampant, making matters worse. Individuals have to make their own choices, but our individual choices affect how we come through this as a whole.As a spokesperson for and practitioner of what has been called alternative medicine or holistic health for almost 30 years, I see two vital points of clarity:
First: At any moment, you cannot be 100% confident you aren’t an asymptomatic carrier. Just as chicken pox is highly contagious before a person knows he or she has the virus, many people are being exposed to COVID-19 by individuals who do not know they have the virus.
Second: Just breathing can spread this virus. Talking, laughing, and singing are as dangerous as coughing. Infectious aerosols can accumulate especially indoors, but also in any poorly circulating air, and can then easily be inhaled into the lungs.
Studies are being done as quickly and effectively as possible due to collaboration in the global scientific community.
Initially the CDC said to wear a mask only if you were sick or caring for someone who was sick. But this was due primarily to the global shortage of masks that were desperately needed by those on the front lines. Research has found that wearing masks significantly lowers the risk of spreading the virus, and that many unnecessary deaths will be prevented if everyone wears a mask. Mask-wearing has been widely adopted in Asia since SARS, and has been seen as a civic duty and a signal of “support” to health-care workers and the national economy.
Myriad reasons exist for not wearing a mask: Masks can be uncomfortable, they fog up your glasses, they are hot, some people feel claustrophobic in them, hearing can be compromised.
But there is only one reason to do the right thing.
You wear a mask and safe distance not because of what you might GET, but because of what you might GIVE!
It goes against our nature to isolate. We are social creatures. It goes against our nature to wear masks. But our nature has been shaped.
By 9:00 this morning, just 15 minutes after our text concurring to cancel our bike ride, the skies were clear. I called my friend and said, “Let’s get on our bikes and ride toward one another.” We did just that. And we had lovely sharing.
The previous evening she had heard a talk about why it is vital we bring native plants to suburban yards. A talk by Doug Tallamy, an entomologist at University of Delaware, author of Bringing Nature Home: How You Can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants. From Doug’s website: Garden as if life depended upon it. You see, native plants support pollinators and food webs far better than introduced ornamentals, and some native plants support much more life than others. Choosing the best plants for your area is the key to success.
Heading home from our ride, as I turned onto my road I was gifted an amazing view of nature’s linear wildflower garden! I pulled into the entrance of our park, got off my bike, and walked out to the road to take a photo. (See Sacred Story: Linear Garden.) Right there, without any fertilizer, and no need for irrigation, nature’s gorgeous, life-sustaining plants.
Perhaps nothing since the Civil War has revealed our ability to see things differently from those we love the way this coronavirus has.
Some see beauty and perfection when looking at a perfectly manicured lawn with the sprinklers twirling—totally missing the warning signs.
The neighborhood in which we rode today is proliferated with a variety of evergreens planted widely in many housing developments a couple of decades ago. Those trees are dying a premature death. An appropriate species, but not native to this zone. Pines are among the oldest trees on Earth. Ponderosa pines, common throughout the western United States, have a lifespan of 300 to 500 years, with an 800-year-old tree documented in Utah.
Shortly after we got home from our ride, my friend sent a text: Raining quite hard here! Lucky us.
Our nature has been shaped just as surely as have our landscapes. We need the rain. We need the native plants. Right now, we need the masks.
I so appreciated reading the words of a friend on his Facebook post: “I will wear my mask when out in public to respect your right,” and I also felt the sting that came with the rest of his sentence: “to live out your lives in fear.”
Noticing the warning signs does not mean one is living out life in fear.
Where are the bees?
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True Freedom
“When the water is muddy
and you can’t see the bottom,
no amount of stirring
can clear the water.”
~ Debra BashamIn the U.S. the 4th of July represents freedom. People often think of freedom as freedom FROM something outside of us, but true freedom is an inside job, and nothing outside of you needs to change for you to enjoy it.
Wednesday night I was unable to fall asleep after John came to bed, so I got up and came in on the bed in the office. At 2:00 am, I was still awake, but I fell asleep some time after that.
At my normal waking time (about 6:00 am) I was enjoying a very stable (lucid) dream state, and I knew I had a choice (or not) to feel (or not) tired. It really isn’t sleep that restores one—we are restored by alignment. What is alignment? Activation of your parasympathetic nervous system….
I have previously posted several tips on activation, but maybe it is worth another quick reminder: (See PNS is BIG; A Chilling Way to Calm Down; Covid-19.
For decades I have enjoyed the benefits of doing a Self-Full Body Connection or meditation or prayer at bedtime so I fall asleep in alignment. I use this metaphor: If your TV is on channel 19 when you fall asleep, it will still be on that channel when you wake up.
With all the stress around the globe, most people are running the sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight) much of the time. Now, like never before, it is vital to bring ourselves back into alignment again and again.
Ram Dass said that compassion is the ability to see how it all is. When you are worried about “X” or “Y” or “Z” your body is processing EVERYTHING via the sympathetic nervous system. Even if you worry yourself to a solution about SOMETHING, your TV is still set on channel 19.
I saw a beautiful quotation by Haruki Murakami, a Japanese writer: “When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what the storm is all about.”
How amazing that without being fabricated,
This mind, which is unborn and primordially pure,
Is spontaneously present from the very beginning!
This self awareness is naturally free from the very first,
How amazing that it is liberated by just resting — —
At ease in whatever happens!
Flight of the Garuda
Lama Shabkar, Tsogdruk RangdrolThink about activation of your sympathetic nervous system as being the storm. Not something outside of you, but what is happening inside. Think also about activation of your parasympathetic nervous system as being coming out of the storm. Also not something outside of you, but what is happening inside.
True freedom is an inside job.
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Don’t Go Back to Sleep
This morning I saw a wonderful quotation by Bruce Chatwin, an English travel writer, novelist and journalist. Although Patagonia, his first book, cast him as a travel writer, in his own mind Chatwin was a storyteller. His true passion was bringing to light unusual tales.
Chatwin’s quotation that caught my eye is: “Man’s real home is not a house but the road, and life itself is a journey to be walked on foot.”
I was inspired to write the following poem.
No “I”
19 March 2007
Seated in a large room
filled to capacity with the
community’s most
influential“Modern medicine
is
like
mopping up the mess
without
turning off
the faucet”Someone
in the audience
asked
“What is the difference
between wellness and illness?”Placing the marker
ceremoniously
on the clean
white page
of the flip chart,
Dean Ornish, M.D. wrote:WELLNESS
ILLNESSStanding
for a moment
in stillness
breathing
before
circling the ‘WE’ in wellness
and the ‘I’ in illnessbefore pausing again
then speaking slowly
“The difference
between WE and I,”he continued
“There is no “I”
in wellness.”A few other comments from that talk:
When you are going to indulge yourself, don’t tell yourself it is good for you.
People are not afraid to make big life style changes, they have kids!
These are choices worth making even if you don’t live one day more—because you will feel better.
Pain is not the problem, it is just the messenger. Bypassing pain is like clipping the wires on your smoke detector and going back to sleep.
I will close this post with a poem by Rumi, a 13th Century Persian poet, and Sufi mystic:
Don’t Go Back to Sleep
The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep.People are going back and forth
across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep.Attending that talk way back in March of 2007, reading Rumi, being a Healing Touch Certified Practitioner and learning NLP and Hypnosis, has been my walking the journey of my life on foot. I have been and continue to be dedicated to helping Western medicine transition from an “I”llness based system to a “WE”llness based lifestyle.
If you are reading this, that has been part of your life on foot, too.
Don’t go back to sleep….
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Skies Upon Skies
“Skies upon skies are available for your flight.”
– Osho Zen TarotI feel a little bit like the morning after Christmas, or the ninth day of Hanukkah. For the closing sharing of this eight-day Intensive/Retreat—the culmination of a two-year commitment to study and practice—I had written: When I logged on this morning, Dallas was the only other one online. I asked him about his virtual image in his background – a waterfall. I showed him a photo of me, also at a waterfall in Maui. We had a lovely visit and I am so glad we shared…
That photo of me at the waterfall is framed and sits on my altar helping me value the dharma path that began long before I knew the word dharma.
I was born in fear and I was living in fear. Not MY fear, but THE fear. My mother was informed that she had syphilis simultaneously with the discovery that she was pregnant. My first trimester in her womb was spent with my mom at a sanatorium being treated. She was angry, embarrassed, afraid….
My alcoholic father had had sex with someone else, and that is how my mother got infected. I knew nothing of this until in my 40s when I began to have awareness of feeling unloved, unsafe, and unwanted. I was a successful professional, happily married, and I had had a good relationship with my mom. Nothing could account for those feelings, but I knew they were there.
I knew I would benefit by uncovering the pain.
In a hypnotic regression to the womb, hearing Les Crane sing Desiderata to me through headphones I had total realization of those feelings. Later I asked my mother if she could help me understand. She told me of the syphilis.
Many of you were there when I shared this as part of “Listen to Your Mother” and it is still available on YouTube.
The fear I lived with, the feelings of not loved, not safe, not wanted arose out of the human condition. I am so grateful to know the truth. Those feeling, any feelings, are not me nor mine.
Instead of sharing all of those words as my closing, I simply shared a series of photos of the sky taken from the window in the guest/room office where I was “on retreat” for those eight days, and where I am now with my fingers on the keyboard, looking at the ever-changing sky:
Aaron’s closing talk was brief and to the point:
You have everything within you
to co-create a future
for the highest good of all beings.
A future where beings are awake,
free of suffering.
Two years ago,
we did not know that
there was going to be
a COVID-19 in our future.
But of course,
there would be something
in our future.
Some challenge.
And you are meeting it with
wisdom and open hearts.
Please do not forget to imagine…
to hold your heart open
and picture an earth free of disease,
free of hatred
—an earth in which
all sentient beings
can truly flourish.
May it be.
May it be so. -
In-tension or Intention
As you speak, so you see
As you see, so you share
As you share, so you becomeI am on retreat, and am living the spirit of the law (rather than the letter of the law) by writing a blog post. This intensive / retreat is the culmination of a two-year “Path of Clear Light” study with Barbara Brodsky and Aaron (and a cast of other enlightened teachers). The past semester has been working with sacred darkness. Groundwork is now being laid for a third year: Co-creating with Spirit. This focus is how we move from being in tension to the intention to invite and allow support. Namely this: How do we INVITE the world as we want it to be? How do we INVITE the expression of the self as we wish it to be?
We were led on a guided meditation and then instructed to take paper and crayons or markers or colored pencils and draw this sacred wish for our being in the world. Most of us in my small group commented on our unskilled artistic abilities. There was no lack of skill in the articulation of our sacred wishes….
I did a doodle process where you place a writing instrument on the page, close your eyes and move it around until guided to stop. Open your eyes and turn the page different directions until you see something come into view. The rules are you can embellish or not, add or not, highlight or not. I like those rules.
After I had completed my drawing, I wrote these notes in my journal: I know I take human form in the world as it is. The big shift is instant manifestation. I see people able to transport via thought, create via thought, destroy via thought. Suddenly, I get a jolt of fear — not trusting human ability to manifest from love and wisdom. I choose the intention to invite and allow release of this fear and I hear, “This is the way.”The words on my drawing that are featured in the top center of this post were written with my nondominant hand. The words on the right side of the drawing were not.
I am the world around me.
What you give birth to has it’s own independence and free will. (Aaron had said this, but including this one might be influenced by learning that I am going to be a great-grandma.)
Everyone has a double and a mirror opposite. Find yourself.
Life expression is joyous.In my doodle, I included a small section of a process called Zentangle which I learned from Carol Myers. Those words are: I AM LOVE.
Yesterday and today I have thought of the title of the book “When Women Were Birds: Fifty-Four Variations of Voice” by Terry Tempest Williams. Her mother bequeathed Terry all of her journals, with the promise not to open them until after she had passed. Three shelves of journals were blank….
I opened email this morning to the BK Thought for Today:
No Complaining Zone
If you approach life complaining about what’s missing then you’ll be dissatisfied. Satisfaction comes from knowing things can always be improved but at the same time appreciating what is right in your life right now.
And Aaron’s Daily Quote:
When you say, ‘Thy will be done,’ you’re not saying, ‘I’ll do whatever you want,’ you’re saying, ‘I obey this sacred sound within me, this sacred wisdom and clarity and love. I will listen for that and no matter how quiet it is and no matter how loud ego’s voice is, I will keep coming back to that sacred vibration within the heart. That is the will I will follow and not the voice of the ego.’
Perhaps this new world is simply the sacred vibration of love and clarity in a no complaining zone….
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Abandon the Unwholesome
I sincerely hope there is not a limit on the frequency of blog posts, as my process is being jarred profoundly by EVERYTHING.
This morning I saw Facebook photos of Stacey (my daughter) and her friend on the pontoon boat on Sunday. Beautiful smiling faces, cheek-to-cheek, looking into the camera: I instantly became aware of the contractions. I am currently writing my July Beyond Mastery Newsletter article for July on the theme of maskers and nonmaskers, placed alongside the story of the Sneetches, by Dr. Seuss.
Further amplifying my inner uneasiness was the reading this morning of poems by two of my Florida poet/friends: “A Disheartened Heart” by Gail Berreitter, and “Second Sight” by Helen Fox. Please understand, these poems are both excellent writings, but they hit too deeply at the core. Slipping in beside the dystopian sentiment expressed in the poems was my confusingly constant companion question about Stacey: How does she arrive at the conclusion that it is OK to expose folks?
Underneath that question is the pain: Less and less do I feel it possible to be with her.
More and more I hold sadness around all of that.
My friend, Jane Foster, so high risk, speaking of meeting for lunch sooner rather than later. (Our “bat cave” favorite restaurant was opening yesterday.)
I write all of this in my journal, then ask my inner being, “Where is the core of fear I feel?”
V: Are you sure it is fear? Are you afraid to die? Are you afraid to be dead? If it were not fear, what might it be?
D: It is a deep sense of sadness. Like the core loneliness of having felt misunderstood much of my life.
V: We know you just bumped into your mother’s social phobia. The world cannot get small enough for you to live without risk. To live a human life is the risk! But, what is at risk? Only a false identity is at risk. Who would you be without that false identity?
D: Free?
V: Free from what? Free for what?
(Note – at this point, I felt guided to turn to the Mala Recitation / Daily Recollection Barbara Brodsky put together, and I am drawn to these beads:
Bead 56: For one who clings, motion exists; but for one who clings not, there is no motion.
Bead 63: Whatever has the nature to arise has the nature to cease and is not me nor mine.
Bead 64: When wholesome thoughts arise, cultivate the wholesome. When unwholesome thoughts arise, abandon the unwholesome.
Bead 65: This is the way to purify the mind and remove the clouds that obscure the vision of ultimate reality.
Bead 70: All dhammas are empty.
Bead 71: They are not born nor annihilated.The closing two lines from Gail’s poem:
No melody or thought
for a disheartened heart.The closing two lines from Helen’s poem:
“What have we learned from this crisis?”There were no definitive answers
Out riding my bike earlier, I would notice the repetitive fearful thoughts and just keep repeating Bead 64: When wholesome thoughts arise, cultivate the wholesome. When unwholesome thoughts arise, abandon the unwholesome.
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In This Moment
This early morning is so quiet…. in the stillness of this moment I am feeling the dawn and I am keenly aware of the possibilities alive in this moment.
A melody awakened in my mind as I sat, and I let the stillness be enhanced by listening to a song I know well, by an artist I have personally met. “In the Stillness” is from the album Let it Shine, by Karen Drucker.
Two months ago today, I arrived home in Michigan from wintering in Florida. (See Nothing is Not the Divine.)
We began safe-sheltering in Florida on March 15, and we have continued to safe-shelter since our arrival in Michigan.
But things are starting to open up. When I ride my bike, the quiet is again more intruded upon by cars whizzing by.
How do we take the benefits from this “retreat” time as our lives move outward into the world again? How do/will I? How do/will you?
Deborah King, author of Be Your Own Shaman, and Heal Yourself and the World sent out a message about the June (05-06) 2020 full moon, which is also a lunar eclipse.
[T]here is an opening to bring the unconscious to the conscious level for healing and transformation.
And this full moon combined with the lunar eclipse has this depth tenfold…
In Vedic astrology, eclipses herald change. Combine that with Mars’s energy for making something happen, and Neptune’s energy for oneness, and we have a recipe for people gathering to create necessary change that’s long overdue.
People gathering…. Oneness…. Healing and transformation.
I was one of the first individuals in my world to choose to safe-shelter. I may be one of the last to choose to gather. It is certainly my intention to choose wholesome actions for the good of all.
Today, I will reflect on some of the gifts this time has brought forth. I have certainly made more home-cooked meals. I have not packed a travel bag since December 1, 2019 — the day John and Stacey and I left Tennessee and made the drive to Pine Island. This from a person who had spent most every Wednesday driving the 50 miles to Kalamazoo. I was seeing clients at Kalamazoo Psychology, various other offices, then at Borgess Integrative Medicine. Each week I would stay overnight in Parkview Hills. Over 20 years of co-writing and collaborative working.
The furnishings of the office here in Saint Joseph are currently boxed up, and everything has been moved to the new location. Touch therapies are scheduled to be allowed to open again on June 15.
Choices, choices, choices….
I have certainly done a lot of meditation and I have certainly practiced patience. I have ordered things I wanted/needed online. I have become acutely aware of the difference between wants and needs. I have been content to make do with what I have. I have been content and known how blessed I truly am, in the stillness of this moment. Groceries have come once a week or so, ordered on Instacart, and delivered to our door by good friends, Linda and Larry.
Linda told me last evening that she is going to start going to the store again. She has offered to continue to shop for us if we choose. That is so kind.
Not shopping is my current choice.
Linda said she likes shopping, and she has been out for a few things the past couple of weeks and has appreciated seeing for herself the appropriate precautions that are in place. She feels it is time for them to start generating a more involved living — of course, with continued wearing of masks and social-distancing.
Always we are making choices.
Today, let’s make the choices that create necessary change that’s long overdue….